The person of the week: Alexander Savko Post-ирония in art
ARTinvestment.RU   11 февраля 2020

Forbidden fruit is sweet and always attracts attention as the picture of Alexander Savko, the permanent participant of contemporary art-сцены, yielding the canvas is presented on the curatorial auction "XXI century"

Modern us system of social relations and values every day more and more different from what took place in 1990-х — early 2000-х. In the field of culture and art in 1990-х an explosive expansion of the frontiers of space. There is a new direction, the extreme nature of the installation, reminding of a picturesque or sculptural dumps, pretentious performances, scandalous public actions. They quickly adopted the new aesthetic of the new freedom.

This was the era when all kinds of buckles and moral boundaries have been shaken. Remaining alone man suddenly realized his subjectivity. The works of Vladislav Mamyshev-Монро, Komar and Melamid, Mikhail Roginsky, Viktor Pivovarov, Igor Makarevich, Timur Novikov, Bella Matveeva, Olga Tobreluts, Marina Koldobskaya, Gipper-Пуппера and many others evoke memories of the dashing picture of the absurdity of those years.

In the same constellation holds a special place creativity Alexander Savko. His style is difficult to describe in one word, he expressed himself in a different genre style: pop-арт, surrealism, classicism... If his early work could be called abstract-пост-модернистскими, then over time the basic method was irony, sometimes turning into sarcasm.

After carrying out in Germany of the exhibition "Heile, heile Welt" the Berlin gallery Paula Bettcher did a project at the fair "Art-Москва-2003", where again provided us with our artist. Triptych "Guernica-2" was purchased in the collection of the Moscow Museum of modern art. And now, like mushrooms after the rain, showered with personal projects Alexander Savko in Russia, many galleries are happy to accept the master within its walls.

a Series of his works — "New Russian fairy tales", "the Journey of Mickey mouse on the history of art", "Russian Venus" and other — is really different sense of humor, depth of knowledge of the subject area and the brightness of the image. Savko is trying to attract viewers elegance statements. Important here is not so much a sense as form submission.

the Main artistic technique used by the author — entire characters in popular culture (animation and media-персонажей) in a different environment, aesthetic, temporal, stylistic. As the artist himself says: "It's an experiment, it's scary wondering if you are any-то characters placed in it is not typical for their situation. You yourself don't know how they will behave, how they live, will be combined with other interior with a different context, whether they are acceptable for each other" (source: cultobzor.ru).

But this raises an important moral question: whether the limits of irony? Permissible irony and sarcasm in the stories and scenes that may affect whose-то feelings, memories? Few people in their right mind would think to laugh at a funeral or at the Church... Can we leave the artist the right to sneer atvalues, protect public morality?

says the artist, "Art — is not an area where where-то pass the red line. ...in art, I do not see the boundaries that supposedly the artist must not cross" (source: cultobzor.ru). Quite a controversial statement in light of increased paternalistic role of the state in contemporary Russia. In the end, freedom one, as you know, ends where it begins the freedom of another...

Where the line between insult and artistic expression, between art and provocation? Probably each of us conducts its-своему.

Alexei Smirnov, specifically for AI